She is tempted closer. She longs to peer through the grimy glass with its net of cobwebs and spy on him – if only to find he is on his camp bed, sleeping. Her feet shuffle towards the window with its flaking sill and vacant stare, but at the last minute she pulls away. She hurries past temptation, vaguely aware she is teetering on a line she must not cross.

She sends Kip back to his bed and mounts the steps to the house. She stops at the top. The breeze has dropped. The night is silent – it crosses her mind unnaturally so, as if nature is holding its breath.

She starts at a distant boom. A shotgun, she thinks immediately, recognising the dull report carried from some point beyond the farm, though she is unable to pinpoint from where. Poachers, she guesses. Over the years the meat ration has driven many into the woods at night in pursuit of a rabbit or a pheasant – even a deer. She has become accustomed to the practice, but tonight the sound makes her shudder and she draws her cardigan around her.

She does not tarry. Her desire to be safely inside is unusually pronounced.

Chapter Fifty-Five

Jack and Gwen are almost knocked down by two speeding cars as they walk to Ted’s the following morning. They throw themselves against the hedge as the lead car’s horn blasts an impatient warning, while the pursuing vehicle leaves grit skittering across the lane.

The threshing team have already set up by the time they arrive. Ted strides out to meet them and to Jack’s surprise he holds out his hand in greeting. His grip is firm and there is an intensity to him that leads Jack to ask if anything is wrong.

‘What? Oh no, no …’ Ted rubs the back of his head distractedly.

‘You look done in,’ Gwen observes.

‘Ah, well … bad night …’ he mumbles as they walk abreast towards the rickyard and the rumbling machinery.

They work solidly through the morning, pitching Ted’s barley crop, blinking the dust and grit from their eyes, coughing up phlegm when too much rubbish clogs their throats. They break for lunch at one.

While the threshing team loll on bales eating their sandwiches, Ted brings Jack and Gwen into the house. Jack is surprised to find it as neat as a pin. He had expected a man of Ted’s age, living alone, to have let the place go. As their host busies himself filling the kettle, Jack whispers to Gwen, asking if there is a housekeeper, but she shakes her head.